The starting point for this article is translations of Russian journalistic texts published in Finnish in ‘Sirppi, vasara ja tähti’ (2006a) by Antti Karppinen and in English in ‘The Hammer, Sickle, and Star’ (2006b) by the same author. These translations struck the author of this article as a novel solution to the problems of translating journalistic texts from Russian into Finnish. The Finnish and Russian way of writing informative, social and political texts are different and pose difficulties for translators. These differences in writing and the problems they present for translators have been verified in research by Inkeri Vehmas-Lehto in her doctoral dissertation ‘Quasi-correctness. A critical study of Finnish translations of Russian journalistic texts’ (1989) dealing with translations of journalistic texts in the Soviet period. Furthermore, these cultural differences have been dealt with on the practical level for ages: as neighbouring countries Finland and Russia have long traditions of cooperation in many fields of life, and translators have had to decide how to render texts in translation to target audiences. In this article the author first provides an overview of historical aspects related to translating from Russian into Finnish, and then discusses aspects of ethics and agency using journalistic texts as an example.